Hunting with Hounds 201 



field. A really finished cross-country rider, 

 a man who combines hand and seat, heart and 

 head, is of course rare; the standard is too 

 high for most of us to hope to reach. But it is 

 comparatively easy to acquire a light hand 

 and a capacity to sit fairly well down in the 

 saddle; and when a man has once got these, 

 he will find no especial difficulty in following 

 the hounds on a trained hunter. 



Fox-hunting is a great sport, but it is as 

 foolish to make a fetich of it as it is to decry 

 it. The fox is hunted merely because there is 

 no larger game to follow. As long as wolves, 

 deer, or antelope remain in the land, and in 

 a country where hounds and horsemen can 

 work, no one would think of following the 

 fox. It is pursued because the bigger beasts 

 of the chase have been killed out. In England 

 it has reached its present prominence only 

 within two centuries; nobody followed the 

 fox while the stag and the boar were common. 

 At the present day, on Exmoor, where the 

 wild stag is still found, its chase ranks ahead 

 of that of the fox. It is not really the hunting 

 proper which is the point in fox-hunting. It 

 is the horsemanship, the galloping and jump- 

 ing, and the being out in the open air. Very 

 naturally, however, men who have passed 



